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Hello and welcome to The Compost Bin. I'm Compostwoman and I live with my family in rural Herefordshire. We have nearly four acres of garden and woodland, all managed organically, which we share with Chickens, Cats, Guinea Pigs and assorted wildlife. We also grow a lot of our own food, run courses in all sorts of things and make a lot of compost!

I work as an environmental educator, lecturer, writer and Forest School leader at Moors Wood . I am a Master Composter and have spent the last 11 years as a volunteer Community Compost adviser with Garden Organic and my local Council. I offer talks and run workshops and events where we talk about compost, veg growing, chicken keeping, cooking, preserving and sustainable living. We also make crafts and have fun.

We try to live a more self sufficient lifestyle here, as best we can, while still having a comfortable life and lots of fun.To learn more about us click on the About Compostwoman tab and remember to click on the photos to make them full size!

We were an assorted group of ( mostly) Forest School leaders, but although I am a FS Leader, I was actually there with a couple of otherLove Food Hate Waste Ambassadors, as we want to do some cooking demonstrations as part of our volunteer role.

We talked through the usual Food Safety stuff, different bacteria, danger zone/safe zone temperatures, how to keep clean, the use of different colour coded chopping boards, general food preparation, the importance of proper storage and reheating,

and then we put it all into practice by making a delicious vegetable soup for lunch, cooked over the fire

We also toasted teacakes and made hot drinks and then mid afternoon packed up camp to do the CIEH (Chartered Institute of Environmental Health) Food Safety Level 2 exam

I have done a more conventional version of this course before and although it was helpful I did have a lot of questions about cooking outdoors which were not really addressed. This time they were :)

The course was taught by Sal Teasdale of Anubis Training - those of you who read my past posts will know I have done lots of training with Sal and Anubis and as usual the whole day was excellent.

Thursday, 28 November 2013

It's time to make more compost! So I took delivery of some more modular compost bins from The Recycle Works

This is my composting area, the yellow builders bags are full of finished compost and leaf mould, dug out from the compost bins

There were six wooden compost bins in this empty space before, but some of the wooden planks had rotted away ( well, they had been buried in decomposing material for more than eight years!) and the ground had become uneven due to tree roots and needed levelling.

So we dismantled the old bins and dug out the base. Quite a lot of the older posts and planks can be reused but the inner posts and planks will be replaced by new ones, as they are the ones which get the most contact with decompostition :) The bricks are there to put the compost bin posts on.

Because we have a bindweed problem everywhere we always put down
geotextile under the bins - it does NOT affect the compost process at
all

Tuesday, 26 November 2013

RIP
Bunty Hen, another of our rescue ex battery hens who lived a life longer
outside the cage, with us , than in it. You can read about how they came to us here. Here is Bunty ( on the right) with her very best friend Titch. Titch was very ill in this picture. It was taken the day she got lost in the wood and, after I found her, she then came inside the house to be nursed for the last 10 days of life. The other hens went out to feed but Bunty stayed with poor Titch and preened her and crooned at her. These two hens ( plus others, now sadly departed) were in the same rescue crate together when we got them and stayed the very best of friends the entire time they lived with us here.

Once Titch died on 2 Nov Bunty rapidly went into a decline, not ill, but just winding down. I hesitate to say she was missing her friend, but I do wonder if she was, even though she still had Babs and the other girls for company.She got very cold a couple of days ago - it was a biting wind and she just stood in the open, not bothering to move to shelter so I brought her in for some warmth and special feeding and cuddles - she perked up the next day and was much brighter and her last day was spent dozing in the
sunshine and pecking at Blondin the Cockerel, to teach him his proper
place.

But as the sun went in today she had a seizure and was
obviously dying, so I helped her out of this life. Sad, but needed to be
done so she did not suffer.

Wednesday, 20 November 2013

In other news, Blondie the chicklet has been re named Blondin the ( escapologist) Cockerel - he has finally perfected his crow ! Blackie
is ( I am pretty certain) a pullet and is already a HUGE one - she is
only 11 weeks old and is already far larger than the adult hens.

And we are having some fabulous sunny days :) The autumn colours are finally here :)

Sunday, 3 November 2013

Today
has been a day of much sloshing water of around, to wash apples.

And as you can see a lot of water went on me!

Lots
of apples.

We
did our stuff today inside the kitchen annexe as it was too cold ( but lovely
and sunny) outside - I have more cleaning up to do because we worked inside but at least I could operate
the scratter and press - if outside my hands would have stopped
working asap due to Raynaulds

Much juice collected -
some to be pasteurised for juice tomorrow ( that will be my mornings
work!) , most to be converted into Cider

BUT I feel guilty ( Gods above, what IS it with me and guilt?) as there must be 100's of pounds more of apples on the trees more, not picked - but we
have more than we can deal with AND no one wants them - I have offered
but we live in Herefordshire apple county so no one wants as they ALL have loads surplus

Am now drinking 2011 Cider and about to eat some (much needed) food - then
will watch Only Connect on catch up TV , and a bit of patchwork also beckons. And probably
more Cider

Love this time of year - gathering in all the good stuff I have grown to feed the family and our friends

Friday, 1 November 2013

She had recovered well from wandering off into the wood overnight
while ill, a subsequent chest infection and she settled into several
weeks as a House Hen, under careful treatment and care. But, she also
went blind and largely stopped eating despite my best efforts to help
her by putting her in a carefully designed small indoor run, with food and drink always in the same place and with me feeding her by hand, many times a day.

An extra job but one I did not begrudge her as she deserved every possible chance to enjoy her life And I loved her

She finally had what looked like a heart attack last night, not long
after I said goodnight and stroked her head and crooned at her - she
purred back at me as usual

So now the nights are drawing in and the clocks have changed, I find myself with time to craft, again.

I have been making 2 1/2 " strips from various saved and recycled cotton fabric to start on my next quilting project, a Trip around the World quilt. I also have some strips I purchased from the Quilt show I went to a few months ago and a few rolls I found in a charity shop last month :)

Playing with layout and colours :)

Sewing the strips together

Cutting the strips

After sewing them into tubes, I unpicked the tubes so that the strips started on a different square

Not yet sewn together as I want to make more strips and play with the orientation and design.

If you have no idea what I am up to and want to know more - see this excellent tutorial from Bonnie K Hunter here